Green Girl Gardener

I missed last Saturday’s Six because I just had to tell you about the hedgehog rescue and subsequent camera purchase instead. It was still garden related, but not a Six.

I’m afraid I’m going to inflict a couple of photos of yours truly on you this week, just because I was so pleased with my success that I had to take selfies to mark the fact that I. Grew. These! Obviously the sun and rain and photosynthesis had a part to play blah blah blah, but I grew these!

So, what shall I start with for number one *scrolls through phone to check photos*. I think carrots.

Apologies for the lack of make up – I find the plants and other inhabitants of my garden aren’t fussed whether I’ve made an effort or not (in fact, the mozzies can’t get enough of me!) As an aside, I don’t know if it’s the angle of that photo, but my décolletage looks bony and I have cheekbones. Whoop – thank you Slimming World! Another stone to go …. ish.

Anyway, carrots! They’re not massive carrots, but they’re Nantes 5 seeds which I think are supposed to produce smallish carrots. Apparently they’re supposed to be early carrots, but I, being inherently impatient, thought they took AGES to grow. I don’t think I thinned them enough because some are hardly developed at all. There’s a good lot in the bed still growing so hopefully they’ll get a bit bigger now I’ve made space.

Straight on to the second selfie for number two.

Blueberries! This is the third Summer I’ve had this blueberry bush and it’s the first time it’s cropped! Oh happy happy day. When I bought it, it had three blueberries already on it, and that was it for that year. Last year it grew lots and lots of green berries, but they never matured into blueberries. This year it got all the green berries again and I thought that was all I’d get again, but they ripened into all these lovely, juicy blueberries. Hooray! These babies will be going in my overnight oats next week. Yummy antioxidants.

No more selfies today, I promise!

Number three is my tomato plants.

These are supposed to be stripy tomatoes, but they don’t seem to be doing much of anything yet. Everyone else I know who grows tomato plants has had loads of fruit already, but my plants don’t even have any flowers yet! The stems are very thin too so I’m not even sure they’ll be able to support fruit. Staking will be in order if they get that far. The weather seems to be rapidly getting colder so I’m not hopeful for these. I don’t even like tomatoes, but I just wanted to grow one stripy tomato!

Continuing on the edible theme for number four – is this an olive starting to grow on my olive tree?

There are a couple of these that I’ve only noticed today. I didn’t think the tree would fruit in this country, preferring a Greek climate (quite sensibly, I feel, so do I!) but it’s definitely doing something. Maybe it’s just some random berry.

Number five is rocket.

Doesn’t look much like rocket at the moment because the seedlings still have their cotyledons but some of them are starting to grow their true leaves. I only sowed these seeds a couple of weeks ago because Adam Frost, when he was standing in for Monty on Gardeners’ World, said it wasn’t too late, so I thought I’d have a go.

For my sixth, and final point I’m going to leave the fruit and veg and show you my patio bed. This is the one I created back in the Spring to cover a weird gap in our patio.

This is what it looked like in March …

… and here’s what it looks like now.

I think I need to compare those side by side.

Wow! I didn’t realise how much the Hebes had grown, and I didn’t think the Cordyline had grown very much at all. I knew the Stipa Ponytails had, but wow (again) I’d forgotten how little they were. These were one of the best bargains I’ve found for the garden. They were 50p each in B&Q last year, but they’ve thrived in our garden (despite being kept in their pots for almost a year!) There were loads of them on sale for 50p but I could only carry two. I so wish I’d gone back and bought, like, ten! I love how willowy and wafty they are.

I did some more planting out today so there’s hardly anything left in my waiting bay now – I’ll have to do my rounds of the garden centres to restock! Maybe I’ll be able to show you that next week. If you’re interested to read any other Sixes, check out the Propagator’s blog.

TTFN.